The White House signaled it was backing off its demand for $5 billion for a border wall, while rocky talks on Capitol Hill prompted Senate GOP leaders to start drafting a short-term spending deal to avoid a shutdown.501

Italy’s finance ministry said it has agreed on a compromise with European Union authorities over the country’s budget deficit, resolving a dispute between Rome’s populist government and EU fiscal enforcers that has vexed financial markets for months.

Global smartphone sales are flattening, which is why Apple and others are looking to India and its millions of newly minted consumers for growth. Yet the tech giant’s market share is falling, revenue is coming in well below expectations and its top leadership ranks are in turmoil.218

Tom Staggs, the former operating chief of Walt Disney, has emerged as a top candidate for the chief executive job at CBS, as the network looks to turn the page on months of uncertainty and upheaval since the departure of Leslie Moonves.

More than two years after Britons voted to leave the European Union, the U.K.’s politicians still can’t agree on what kind of Brexit they want. Now more lawmakers are calling for a do-over, a second referendum that could potentially reverse the results of the first.56

SoftBank’s Japanese mobile-phone unit, which launched one of the biggest public share offerings in recent years, made a disappointing debut as investors worried about a price war and the company’s reliance on Chinese supplier Huawei Technologies.

A federal judge softened his previous suggestion that he would likely issue a court order requiring CVS Health to halt its integration of newly acquired insurer Aetna, citing CVS’s pledges to keep certain aspects of Aetna’s operations separate for now.

After two stints in Chinese prisons for helping North Koreans flee, Tu Airong is awaiting a final decision from South Korea on his application for asylum. If he is successful, human-rights workers say it would be the first time Seoul has granted asylum to a person who helped North Koreans reach the South.

An American woman who died while in Syrian government custody is believed by aid groups and activists to have been executed, spurring concern for other U.S. citizens who may be detained by the regime.62

Heavy fighting between Yemen’s government and Houthi rebels has subsided, suggesting the two sides are adhering to a deal struck as part of a U.S.-backed diplomatic push to end the nearly four-year war.